Common Italian expression
| Literally | You don’t check the mouth of a gift horse |
| Meaning | You shouldn’t look for flaws in a gift you’ve been given, but simply appreciate it |
| IPA pronunciation | /a kaˈval doˈnaːto non si ˈɡwarda in ˈbokka/ |
A caval donato non si guarda in bocca.
Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.
Where does this idiom come from?
Bad teeth belong to older animals, and older animals are worth less on the market. It’d be rude to focus on them when the horse (cavallo) is given to you (donato).
A horse’s mouth (bocca) is usually not a pleasant sight, and in the past, checking on the animal’s teeth was a way to estimate its age for business purposes.
Related lessons
- guardare (to look)
- donare (to donate)
- cavallo (horse)
- bocca (mouth)
- in (preposition)
- prepositions
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